Since last summer, the top 3 ratings agencies (S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch Ratings) have made 196 “super-downgrades” on municipal bonds, according to research popularized in today’s Wall Street Journal. Super-downgrades are defined as cuts of at least three grade-letter scores on the traditional scale used by the firms. For example, when the US treasury…
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The market is a yo-yo following the S&P downgrade – investors are searching for stability amid the policy flux created by the current Congress and Administration. Businesses and investors are struggling to create and sustain stable and accurate expectations as to the rules they are likely to face in the future. Steve Horowitz gives…
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In a speech to the Libertarian Party in Indianapolis, Michael Munger gives three things the government has to do to deal with the debt crisis: 1. Cut defense spending by by at least 15%. More than 15% — even better! 2. Sell US bonds in the Social Security trust fund. Also raise the Social…
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The latest effort coming out of Capitol Hill to reduce the debt and avoid default is called the “Gang of Six Plan”, named after its three Democrats and three Republican authors. The plan includes $500 billion in immediate “budget savings”, reductions in marginal income tax rates, and the abolition of the alternative minimum tax….
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What do you think is taller: the Empire State Building or cube of $114 trillion dollars??? Check it out here! The 114.5 Trillion dollar super-skyscraper is the amount of money the U.S. Government knows it does not have to fully fund the Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, social security, military and civil servant pensions….
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With the White House and the House of Representatives still at loggerheads over how to resolve the debt crisis, administration officials are turning up the heat, claiming that Washington has only two choices: increase the government’s borrowing capacity beyond the current $14.3 trillion limit or face a catastrophic U.S. Treasury default. If the latter…
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Freakonomics reports yesterday that a new poll from the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post shows more people see raising the debt limit as a bigger risk than not raising it. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner conduct their own poll. Weigh in here! As Ezra Klein reports on the development of the Capitol…
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HT: Tyler Watts
Ron Paul has gone public with proposals for the Fed to destroy $1.6 trillion in government bonds that it is currently holding. As The New Republic’s Dean Baker reports, such a plan might be a way around the impass that has mounted on the Hill. Aside from the practicalities of politics, Paul’s plan is…
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